Tag Archives: mathematical fluency

I came across an interesting game today in my perpetual on-line search for quality math games that promote thinking. It’s called Mission 211 – Mental Maths.

A video transmission from mission control’s Caleb explains the tasks at hand. You must answer mental math questions as quickly as you can in order to collect biofuel rods and foil the evil roboids..!! Best of all, Caleb provides strategies for solving the problems, if you need his help. The strategies include “counting on”, “breaking down numbers” and “rounding” – what we might call compensation or friendly numbers.

The music and the heartbeat in the background (yes, really!) create a sense of urgency, and encourage you to complete the questions as quickly as you can. If you need help, pressing the “HINT” button produces a mental math strategy to one side of the screen. It’s a super helpful scaffold, and one that helps to make the numbers meaningful. As you progress through the game, there are true or false multiplication and division questions as well – a nice blend of methods and ways of presenting content.

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Welcome!

I am Carole Fullerton, an independent consultant working with teachers around British Columbia (and beyond!) in the area of numeracy. I work with districts, whole school staffs, with school-based learning teams, in classrooms and with parents in an effort to promote mathematical thinking.